Richard Burke, Founder of Trek Bicycle Company, Is Dead at 73

Richard Burke, a founder of the Trek Bicycle Corporation, which capitalized on the luster of Lance Armstrong’s victories in the Tour de France to reshape the way top-of-the-line bikes are manufactured, died Monday in Milwaukee. He was 73 and lived in Milwaukee.

The cause was complications of heart surgery, said his son, John, who is now president of the company.

It was on a $6,500 carbon-fiber Model 5500 bike built by Trek that Mr. Armstrong won his first Tour de France in 1999, the first of his seven straight Tour titles.

“With that, Trek became the first American bike company to win the Tour and the first to build a carbon-fiber bike that won the Tour,” John Bradley, a senior editor and the cycling expert at Outside magazine, said Wednesday. “It was a watershed moment.”

Racing bikes must be as light and stiff as possible. Before they were made of carbon fiber, which has the best stiffness-to-weight ratio, the bikes were made of steel, titanium or aluminum. “Now you can’t find a high-end bike, or even a high-end bike component, that isn’t made out of carbon fiber,” Mr. Bradley said.

With his friend Bevil Hogg, Mr. Burke started the Trek company in 1976, in a barn in Waterloo, Wis. The company now has 1,600 employees and sells through more than 5,000 dealers in 75 countries. It makes more than 300 models, from a single-speed $140 bike for youngsters to the $8,500 Madone.

Photo

Richard BurkeCredit
Trek Bicycle Company

Mr. Burke was the owner of an appliance distributorship in Milwaukee before turning to making bicycles. At the time, European models dominated the market, and there were few luxury American brands. But in the mid-’70s, as American biking boomed beyond the tricycle and the single-speed Schwinn, Mr. Burke saw potential profit in the high-end bike.

That first year in the barn, the Trek company produced 805 handmade, finely detailed road bikes and earned $161,000. Last year, the company manufactured 1.5 million bikes and had revenue of $670 million.

In 2001, the company got a bit of a publicity lift when Mr. Armstrong went to the White House and presented President Bush with a Trek. Soon after, Mr. Bush was riding at least an hour a day on most weekends at his Texas ranch.

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In May 2004, when the president took a spill and scraped his face, his Trek Fuel 90 mountain bike became temporary fodder for his opponent in his re-election campaign. The Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, made what he believed was an off-the-record remark that drew wide coverage: “Did the training wheels fall off?”

Richard Alexander Burke Jr., who preferred to be called Dick, was born in Chicago on June 4, 1934. His father died when he was 2. His mother, the former Helen McWeeny, later married Edwin Trizil.

Mr. Burke’s first marriage, to Elaine Sachs, ended in divorce. Besides his son, of Madison, Wis., Mr. Burke is survived by his wife, Camille; four daughters, Mary Burke of Madison; Kathleen Seiberlich of Pewaukee, Wis.; Michele Deubel of Hartland, Wis.; and Sharon Jonas of Park City, Utah; a stepbrother, Mike Trizil of Chicago; and nine grandchildren.

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Burke was not an avid biker. He did, however, run in five New York City Marathons and three Boston Marathons, his son said.

Correction: March 13, 2008
Previously posted versions misstated the model number of the bicycle on which Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France, misspelled the name of Mr. Burke's partner in the Trek company and incorrectly listed Mr. Burke's surviving daughters as his sisters.